It would be easy for the Evergreen Cougars football team to live in the past. After all, 2010 was quite special.
The team ended years of mediocre seasons with an 8-3 campaign that saw EHS reach the 3A state playoffs for only the sixth time in school history. The Cougars finished second in the Metro West Conference to eventual state champion Elizabeth. And Evergreen evened the score with rival Conifer with a thrilling 17-13 Mountain Bowl victory.

Denver Mountain Parks has won a $130,000 grant from the federal government's Wildland Urban Interface Grant Program to remove ladder fuels and thin forest on 120 acres of 549-acre Cub Creek Park south of Evergreen.

The general working area is the parkland between Brook Forest Road and Highway 73. Work is not expected to begin until summer 2012.

The target area is mostly ponderosa pine, including a lot of small and large trees that are very tightly spaced and in danger of insect infestation and wildfire.

The fun of learning without the agony of grades, exams and papers has inspired Mary Meinig of Evergreen to take 27 courses from Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in the last five years, even though it means driving 19 miles to the center in Lakewood.

Ordinarily, Meinig hates the idea of commuting anywhere. Retired and 72, Meinig doesn't really have to leave home. But the camaraderie and intellectual challenge, not to mention the low price tag, keep her on the road winter, fall and spring.

The postal-carrier annex at 1222 Bergen Parkway across from the King Soopers shopping center has been closed abruptly as a cost-saving measure. Some 25 employees were reassigned to the main Evergreen post office on Evergreen Parkway and Bryant Drive.

Local mail will continue to be delivered six days a week as usual.

The change means that customers will have to call the main post office at 303-679-9861 if they have trouble with mail delivery, instead of the previous phone number (303-670-0213), which was disconnected as of Saturday, Aug. 13.

After four years as Evergreen’s fire chief, Garry DeJong is preparing to start a new job in Idaho, as questions continue to surround the reasons for his decision to leave — a move that was not entirely his idea.

During the regular monthly meeting of the Evergreen Fire Protection District board on Aug. 9, DeJong officially announced his resignation and his new appointment as fire chief in Lewiston, Idaho.

A photographic feast with practical info on the side, "80439: A User's Guide to Evergreen," is an irreverent collection of things that make our mountain community a wacky and wonderful place to live.

Evergreen resident Steve Knapp, an irreverent man in his own right and a former staff writer for the Canyon Courier, has written a softback guidebook to Evergreen that started out to be for newcomers and then grew into something for everybody.